At only 5’4″ Ann Forsyth was a “dynamo,” said her daughter, Sandra Neely. She was still clogging with a group until a few months ago and bowled until March.
“She wore me out just watching her,” said her daughter, Terry Genardi of Westminster.
Forsyth was 85 when she died of cancer on June 10.
Forsyth had beaten cancer twice before and “fought all the way to the end” when it returned, several months ago, said Neely, of Aurora.
Forsyth had to drop out of school in the eighth grade because of rheumatic fever, but years later went back to night school, taking accounting classes at Abraham Lincoln High School.
Forsyth drove race cars in the 1950’s, in the “powder puff derbies,” that were at the Englewood Speedway. “It was an oval dirt track, about one-third of a mile,” said Neely. Her mother won several trophies, each topped with a miniature car.
“She was a wonderful dancer,” said Verna Henkenberns of Westminster, a friend. Forsyth taught her own children to dance.
“Ann was always there for people, no matter what problem they had,” said Henkenberns.
The Country Cloggers, of which both women were members, used to have 25 or 30 members, but now has six. They dance at fairs, nursing homes and charitable events, each time fitting their costumes with the holiday or season.
Forsyth had danced in Denver Post Opera productions, held for decades, until 1970, in Cheesman Park in east Denver.
She was a self-taught pianist and could play most anything, said Neely.
“She was a character,” said Dave Beatty, a pastor at West Bowles Community Church in Littleton where Forsyth volunteered one day a week in the office. “She was a meticulous worker and always dressed to the nines,” he said.
That picture of her didn’t mesh, he said, with her advice to Beatty about getting rid of heartburn: “Just drink a diet Coke and then get a good belch.”
Ann Pardee was born in Denver on April 16, 1924.
She married Bill Nicholson and they had two children. They later divorced.
She and her second husband, Don Forsyth, whom she married in 1959, merged their families — her two children and his four.
In addition to her daughters and husband, she is survived by another daughter, Sharon Forsyth of Hawaii; three sons: Don Forsyth Jr., of Arvada, Lynn Nicholson of Denver and Gary Forsyth of Indian Hills; nine grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
